THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

I was born in the rural area of a Texas Gulf Coast city to a large, closely knit extended family. Ours was a typical melting pot American family with Italian, American Indian, English, German, Scotch-Irish, and French ancestries. We trace our ancestry primarily through my maternal grandfather's Italian lineage that is the family patronymic and which has the most complete genealogical records dating back to Roman times. The family name is traced back that far; provenance of our family line dates back to the 1300s. The family genealogists have had varied and limited success in tracing other ancestors.

The family was fortunate to live on a farm during the Depression and during those hard times, many family members returned to the farm to survive. I learned a good lesson: the land will always feed you (excluding droughts). We had crops of foodstuffs , meat animals for slaughter , chickens and other fowl for eggs and meat , dairy cows for milk and butter , and wild plants , herbs , and animals for hunting. The women folk canned huge amounts of food in glass jars; later cans became available , mother purchased cans, lids and a sealer and some foodstuff was canned in cans instead of jars, although jars were the favored method of canning. Mother and Grandma even canned extra milk. Some meats were canned.

Meats , especially pork , such as hams and sausage links, were smoked in the smokehouse. They had apparatuses with which to inject a salt solution along the hambones , and a machine with which to fill the sausage casings with the sausage mixture. Image of a sausage stuffing machine below right, next to cream separator; sausage mixture was placed in the top, a casing was fitted over the spout, and as the handle was turned the sausage meat was forced into the casing. Some beef was dried and smoked. Most meat animals could be processed at any time. Pigs and hogs were slaughtered only when there was a cold snap and the pork could be kept cold and processed quickly. We had no means of real refrigeration. 50 pound blocks of ice could be purchased in the city , transported wrapped in canvas and kept in an Icebox. It was a rare treat, however.

I escaped most of the intensive labor involved in the preservation of food but still participated in some of the prep work. The work was very labor intensive and canning was hot, steamy work. I shelled so many bushels of peas, snapped so many bushels of green beans that to this day I dislike doing it. I also helped in prepping tomatoes and still do not like that either. Processing tomatoes consisted of holding a tomato on a fork, dipping it in scalding water that loosened the skins, then slipping the skins off before the tomato cooled. That left a nice, whole tomato neatly skinned .....and burning fingers.

When the cows were milked, the milk had to be strained through cheesecloth and set in a cool place until the cream rose to the top. Milk does not come from the cows nicely homogenized nor butter in nice blocks. The cream was then carefully skimmed from the top of the milk and churned. Later, a cream separator was purchased, which separated the cream from the milk. Image on left of photo, blue base. Milk was poured into the large metal bowl on top; turning the handle lower on the side forced the lighter cream to be forced to the top and out the upper spout and milk out the lower spout.


Our early churns were wooden barrel like containers with a hole in the lid to accommodate a handle. The handle had a cross piece affixed to the bottom. Churning required that the handle be plunged up and down rather rapidly for an eternity until the cream separated from the whey into clumps of butter. Butter then was washed clear of residual whey and either packed into a butter mold to form blocks, or simply spooned into bowls. Churning was usually a child's chore and I did plenty of it. Later we obtained a modern method of churning. A large pot bellied glass jug had a lid with holding handle, gears, and a turning handle affixed to a rotating set of paddles similar to an egg beater. Then you turned that handle for an eternity until the butter separated from the whey. Sometimes Mother or Grandmother would use some of the skim milk to make cottage cheese; the completed ingredients were then poured into a cheesecloth bag and hung to allow the whey to drip from it until it was a more solid lump.



Laundry day illustration from the internet. Wash water was heated over a bonfire in a large cast iron kettle, image lower left. Rinse water in tubs was placed on a bench, image lower right. Clothing was scrubbed on a scrub board, image upper left. Washed, rinsed and wrung out clothing was then hung on a clothesline, image upper right.


Laundry day was an all day ordeal for the women. Soap bars had been made previously, which was another ordeal. Lye was made by pouring water through a barrel of wood ashes to leach out the chemicals. Lye is extremely caustic. The lye was then mixed with rendered pig fat , poured into a flat container, and when set solidly, cut into bars. (the pig fat was made by boiling the solid fat until the "grease" rose to the surface and was skimmed off. Clumps of fried fat were called Cracklings and used elsewhere.) Commercial soap bars were too expensive to be used in laundry so were reserved for baths. You do not want to bathe with lye soap.

Illustration from internet: Making lye. A barrell was filed with clean wood ashes. Water was poured in the top and allowed to percoate down through the ashes. The resultant liquid that poured from the spout was lye water, very caustic, but when mixed with pig grease made soap.


We had large, cast iron kettles set over a bonfire and which were laboriously filled per buckets of water carried from the well pump. Water weighs about 8 pounds per gallon, so each 5 gallon bucket weighed about 40 pounds; toting a number of those became quite a chore.

It took many buckets full of water to fill the kettle and washtubs. Buckets like these were also used for milking the cows but kept separate from water buckets.

#3 washtubs were large enough for children and women to bathe in. Even the men did with their knees bent over the rims and their legs hanging outside. However, men often bathed standing up, pouring the bath water over themselves in an impromtu shower bath.

The lye soap was shaved into the kettles and melted as the water heated. Clothing was washed and rinsed in strict order. Whites first, then nice colored clothes, then everyday colored clothes, and the men's work clothing last. Items were lifted from the kettles with a "punching stick" and the steaming hot cloths placed on a rub board (also called a scrub board). The clothing, sheets, etc. were then rubbed by hand against the corregated surface of the rub board to remove any soiled spots , burning your hands in the process with both heat and lye.

A scrub board. The center metal surface was corrugated and clothes were rubbed against the corrugations to remove soil and stains. There was an art to proper scrubbing to avoid rubbing the skin off your knuckles. You pushed the clothing against the corrugations with the heel of your hand, not the knuckles.

Three or four #3 washtubs were set upon a bench in which to rinse the clothes; these tubs were also hand filled with buckets of water. As the laundry progressed and the water got soapy, these tubs had to be emptied and refilled with fresh, clean water. The hot items were lifted from the rub board, wrung free of the soapy water and dumped into the first rinse water, hand wrung and placed into the next water tub. Grandmother's whites had to be snowy and the last rinse for them contained a product called bluing. Clotheslines were strung from poles set into the ground and the finished wet items, wrung of all water as possible, were hung from the clothes lines with clothespins. Rags and men's overalls were spread out atop bushes to dry.

There was no wash-and-wear in those days so certain items had to be starched and ironed. All dress clothes must be starched as well as the counterpanes for the beds. Counterpanes were the equivalent of bed spreads and Grandmother kept hers snowy white , starched and ironed. Grandmother was a lady and even though married to a farmer and Depression-poor, she insisted on maintaining standards. She made her counterpanes from yard goods of unbleached muslim, which she then bleached to her satisfaction. She embroideried lovely designs on them and completed them with crocheted or tatted "lace" borders. Starched and ironed and spread on the made beds, they were untouchables. No one dared to sit on a bed and wrinkle them. At night they were carefully folded or rolled and put up until morning.

Ironing was another laborious chore. Wood had to be brought in to stoke a fire in the old cast iron stove. Cast iron flat irons were heated on the stove, tested for the correct temperature by a quick touch with a wet finger, then the item was smoothed with the hot iron. As it cooled it was replaced with another hot iron from the stove. Think about ironing a counterpane without wrinkling it in any manner, an expanse of cloth as large as a bedspread spread across an ironing board. Prior to ironing, all the starched items had to be dampened by sprinkling and rolled in towels to prevent them from drying out. Ironing was an all day chore also, considering how many people were in residence and the number of clothes that had to meet Grandma's standards of proper dress.


Similar cast iron cook stove at the CC farm. Wood was burned in the firebox which heated the burners on which food was cooked and irons heated as well as heating the oven. It now amazes me that mother and grandmother could gauge exactly how hot the oven was by opening the door and placing their hand inside the oven. They knew whether or not to add a stick of kindling wood to the fire for more heat or to shovel out some of the coals to reduce the heat. They baked bread, cakes, cookies, and meats to a nicety without thermostats or automatic stoves. They cooked huge meals on the old stove, then heated dishwater and bath water on it.

Ofcourse first of all the men had to go to the woods, chop down trees, haul the trunk and limbs to the homeplace, cut the wood into proper lengths for its intended usage before fires could be built. The old cookstove also served as heat in the winter when we children would take our baths in one of the #3 washtubs. During the summer we often bathed in the tubs underneath a tree outdoors.

Life was a hard round of labor for everyone. The men tended the livestock, did the milking, worked the fields planting and harvesting, supervised the laborers working in the cash crop fields, like cotton, weighed and hauled it to market, slaughtered and processed meat animals, baled hay, and did all maintenance and repair around the farm.

Cotton pickers. When the cotton bolls opened, revealing the tufts of cotton, it had to be plucked and put in a canvas sack. When the sack was full it was dragged to the cotton wagon, weighed and then emptied into the wagon. Hands were paid for their labor by the poundage harvested. When the wagon was full it was taken to a cotton gin where machinery separated the cotton from the seeds and packed into bales. Cotton fibers were valuable and so were the seeds, from which cottonseed oil was pressed. When Grandpa had the farm in west Texas, his hired hands were usually blacks. At the Corpus Christi farm the majority of the hired hands were Mexican labor.


They worked very hard and it is difficult to determine whose roles were the hardest - the men's or the women's. In addition to the work described above, women also kept house (and Grandmother's house was spotless in spite of the large number of people in residence), looked after the hordes of children, cooked gargantuan meals on a cast iron stove and hand washed all the resultant mountains of dishes.

Cash was limited and Mother and Grandmother learned frugal ways to care for their families. Animal feed to supplement the graze and hay diet came in 100 pound cotton sacks imprinted with floral patterns; sugar and flour came in white cotton sacks. All sacks were closed with cotton string sewn in a zigzag pattern. The women accompanied the men to buy feed so they could select a desirable floral pattern on the sacks from which they sewed children's clothing on the old treadle sewing machine.

Sugar, flour, and some coffees came in white sacks like these. The sacks were washed clean of the labeling and bleached to a snowly white. Then mother and grandmother sewed undies from them.

One-woman-powered sewing machine. Pedaling the treadle caused a belt attached to the flywheel to turn the machinery that made the needle jump up and down, creating stitches. Sewing on one of these machines was a lot of work but not as much as hand sewing. In later years mother obtained a small electric motor that could be affixed to the wheel and turned it via electric power. I sewed many of my babies' clothes and blankies on it.

Panties and petticoats were made from sugar and flour sacks, and Grandmother salvaged every piece of string to use for crocheting "lace". Because Grandmother adhered as best as she could to her previous standard of living as a lady and because of the respect held for the family in the community, I never realized that we were poor until after I grew up. Only then , in retrospect, did I realize how poor we really were.

Poor financially, but rich in family, love, and good times. In spite of all the hard labor, we did have good times. Box suppers at the school house, social gatherings at church, home parties of square dancing (because the Baptists disapproved of dancing in any form, the square dancing was called "ring games", which made it respectible), playing with the cousins, and the wonderful gathering on the front porch in the evenings after work was done.


Kerosene (coal oil) lamp such as we used on the CC farm.

The soft, golden glow of the kerosene lamps shining through the windows lit the figures of family seated on the porch, conversing, telling old time tales, laughing and joking. I usually played with the other children at these times but often I would creep close to the porch edge and listen to the old family stories. I learned a great deal about our roots and came to know my progenitors as persons instead of merely names.



Kerosene (coal oil) lanterns for outdoor use. We had no flashlights in those days.


A hand cranked ice cream maker. A rare and wonderful treat was home made ice cream. The men would haul a precious block of ice from town wrapped in canvas tarp. The women would make the ice cream mix from milk and cream, sugar, vanilla flavoring, and if they were in season, chopped peaches or strawberries. The mix would be poured into the steel cylinder, it was screwed shut, and chipped ice piled in the bucket around the cylinder. Rock salt was added in layers between the ice. Turning the crank rotated wooden or steel paddles inside the cylinder, which helped chill the milk mixture evenly. It took a lot of cranking to make ice cream. When the resistance of the freezing milk mixture was deemed sufficient, a folded quilt was placed over the top to allow the cream to "ripen". At last the top would be removed and the delectable delight exposed. It melted quickly but it was devoured quickly also. My first taste of commercial ice cream was at a church affair where eskimo pies were served. One time in town Mother splurged and bought a quart of banana nut ice cream. The fact that these events are so well remembered shows how rare they were. The Depression was hard times.

At one time over thirty family members resided on the farm; those that remained in the city returned often to visit and obtain food supplies, or to stay for varied lengths of times. There were many hobos in those days and it was not unusual for destitute men, ruined by the Depression, to come down our country lane to ask for work or beg for a handout. Grandpa didn't want strange men hanging about the house when the menfolk were gone to the fields so the hobos were not set to work to earn their meal, but Grandma never turned a living soul away hungry. She couldn't bear to see people hungry, plus she lived her faith and the Christ's admonition that, "as you have done it to the least of these...you have done it unto me" was very real to her, as well as "be ye kind one to another". She was at all times kind and forgiving of her fellow man.


A hobo migrant worker


Single men weren't the only homeless wanderers. Entire families were too.

So were the elderly. The legend under this photo from the Great Depression stated that these folks walked 30 miles to relatives' home.

We were fortunate to have the farm and the closely knit extended family. Other people were not so blessed. The mid-west was cursed with a terrible drought that caused the Dust Bowl and farms to fail. An estimated 3 million Americans were jobless and homeless. Grandpa's farm was a life saver and I came to know the family at large and all the neighbors.

Growing up in that environment, cousins became as close as siblings, aunts and uncles like second sets of parents. We learned that family is the most important factor of life, and family always helps family. Everyone was poor in the rural community and everyone extended a helping hand to others, so friends and neighbors often came under the umbrella of "family". The practise of including non-relatives as family members has followed me all my life and I see some of my children continuing the practise.

My maternal Grandmother was the Matriarch of our clan, my beloved mother-image, my mentor, role model and idol. I loved my mother, ofcourse, but Grandmother was first with me and I adored her. She exerted great influence on the developement of my character, standards, and belief systems.

I started school in a little country school, skipped the second grade, and in the fourth grade attended a consolidated, more modern school. During WWII there was such a huge influx of military families to the naval and air military complexes with children requiring education, that two rural school districts were consolidated, and a new modern school building was erected near Main Side N.A.S. All us country mice were bussed to the new school where we attended classes with children from all over the United States and some from other lands. Until that time the only foreigners we had encountered were the Mexican immigrants who casually entered and left our borders as they desired, and we didn't consider them foreign; they were just Mexicans and a part of our communities.

Mother and Grandmother purchased land in a new subdivision about six miles from the city limits, built houses on the lands and I then had access to public busses to the city proper. My world expanded considerably; the country mouse became a more cosmopolitan mouse. I met and married a yankee sailor from Pennsylvania and started a family.

We do make unwise choices when we are young and green. I do not regret bearing my children, nor the opportunities to see other parts of the U.S. and experiencing other sub-cultures of the American peoples. I did have regrets about other things.
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This post is about the Yellow House Farm outside of Corpus Christi. Grandpa had several farms as well as the Cities Service gas station in Gardendale. The last farm was the one in Sabinal. I'll write about it one day. When I get a scanner I will post family photos.

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To learn about the Great Depression, search "Great Depression" on the internet. An url for the history of the Great Depression is: http://www.tms.riverview.wednet.edu/LRC/Great%20Depression.htm It has many sites to click on.

Labels: Depression times-growing up